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Love: A New Understanding of an Ancient Emotion by Simon May

Love | A New Understanding of an Ancient Emotion by Simon May reframes how we should understand the emotion of love. He sees love as motivated by a promise of “ontological rootedness,” rather than by beauty or goodness, by a search for wholeness, by virtue, by sexual or reproductive desire or, in one of today’s dominant views, by no qualities at all of the loved one.

The Power of Cute by Simon May

The Power of Cute by Simon May explores the growth of cuteness which has taken the planet by storm. Global sensations Hello Kitty and Pokémon, the works of artists Takashi Murakami and Jeff Koons, Heidi the cross-eyed opossum and E.T.—all reflect its gathering power. But what does “cute” mean, as a sensibility and style? Why is it so pervasive?